Wei Jianxing, the president of All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), says that Chinese trade unions need to help promote the restructuring of state-owned enterprises and to safeguard the rights and interest of workers.

　 Wei, also member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, told an ACFTU meeting in Beijing on Friday that the unions should cooperate with government at all levels in helping implement the policies and measures that were designed to restructure state-owned enterprises.

　 He said that there have been major policy decisions recently of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee to promote the restructuring. State enterprises employ about 100 million people.

　 These decisions Wei described as an action agenda for reforming and developing the state enterprises, including the strategic readjustment of the state-run economy and strategic restructuring of enterprises and reforming the management of each enterprise.

　 He said that unions should improve themselves by reforming their operations and management in the light of these decisions to better serve China's working people.

　 They should also help local governments do a better job in streamlining the over-staffed state enterprises, seeing to it that the basic needs of laid-off workers are met and that they find employment, he said, adding that an effort needs to be made to see to it that workers are represented on the boards of directors or supervisory councils of enterprises that are solely owned or controlled by the state. (Xinhua)